Post-Kickstarter Plans and Two More Dev Q&A Opportunities Today

Post Kickstarter

As we enter into the final week of the Kickstarter campaign we wanted to not only thank you for all the support you've shown over the past 35 days, but also to let you know what's coming up. We still have until Saturday to get the rest of those pledges in, so please help us spread the word, as you have been. We're very grateful for all the support that's been shown.

Now, what happens after the Kickstarter? Whether the Kickstarter funds or not by Saturday, the plan remains the same: we will be continuing crowdfunding through our own website. Tom and his team have been building the site over the past little while, as you've probably noticed. The changes will all be in place by Saturday when the Kickstarter comes to a close. From the official game site you'll be able to pledge, much like you have been on Kickstarter, but with less percentage taken off due to fees deducted by Amazon and Kickstarter. So this means more of your money goes directly into the development of the game.

The reward tiers will be similar to those on Kickstarter, with some tweaking done. We've learned a lot about what you're looking for during this campaign and we feel we can deliver on getting you the kinds of rewards you want in a cleaner, easier-to-understand tiers. We'll also be able to add more rewards at any given time, without the new rewards affecting other tiers. This was something we've been unable to do too much of during the Kickstarter without a lot of confusion as to how specific tiers would affect the others.

The new site puts a great emphasis on community and social interaction, much like Pantheon. You'll be able to connect with friends, see their status feeds, create guilds and groups, share images and videos, browse and participate in the wiki, toss around game ideas in the Think Tank,chat with friends in the IRC, post blogs, create events, participate in polls and surveys, and discuss topics on the forums. We feel this kind of community building is important prior to launching a community-centric game, so we wanted to give you the tools to do just that.

Additionally we have three subscription models in place for the new site when it launches later this week.

The free subscription will allow you to interact with friends and guildmates on the social hub portion of the site where you can create or join guilds or groups and interact with your social connections through the site.
As a free subscriber, you'll also be able to see all of the public areas of the website and forums to keep up with what's going on with Pantheon.

The Supporter subscription will allow you all of the functionality of the free subscription and will include a special name color for supporters in the social hub, chat room and forums.
As a supporter you'll also be able to reply and offer answers to topics in the Think Tank, which is a special area of the site where developers and community will be tossing around some ideas for feedback. The top messages get voted up, and potentially worked into the game! Supporters will be able to post on the non-public forums.

The Champion subscription will include everything the Supporter level has, with a new unique name color exclusive to champions, and the ability to post and comment in the wiki. In addition to all of this, champions will be invited to a weekly roundtable stream where they'll be able to participate directly with the devs while discussing the design of the game. Topics of the roundtable will vary from points brought up in the Think Tank, to discussions from the Champions forums, to design details of actual game elements. This subscription will get you more involved than ever before!

As we're putting the final touches on the site, please keep in mind that the site is not yet complete and should be considered to be in beta until it launches after the Kickstarter.

Two New Dev Ops Today

We've got two more shows coming up today where you can participate live on the air.

First, at noon Pacific: Salim, Tony and Ben will be visiting the folks over at MMObuff.tv once again to talk more Pantheon.

Then, coming up at 4pm Pacific, another Developer Series live stream through The Rob and Dan Show on Twitch.tv. Tune in and watch Vu continue work on the game while Salim, Tony and Ben talk with Rob and Dan about the game and answer questions from the chat channel. As this is the first time Tony will be joining us on the show, you won't want to miss this one.

Lots more coming up this final Kickstarter week. We'll be spreading the word out as far as we can, and urge all of you to do the same. It's a big number we need to hit in short time, but there's a lot of passion out there. Let's bring it all home!

Comments

What went wrong with Kickstarter: I think that the Pantheon Kickstarter was released far too early in the development cycle. VR needed to get a detailed design plan and easy to understand reward structure together before launching the Kickstarter. I think that the lack of a solid design plan has been this project's greatest obstacle to success. I also think that the VR crew failed when it came to the pre-Kickstarter advertising phase. Only a very limited amount of attention was given to the pre-Kickstarter Pantheon publicity phase. Finally, launching a fundraising website before the Kickstarter is over is bad form. It makes the Kickstarter community think that VR gave up on them.

What could have been corrected: VR needed to launch an aggressive pre-Kickstarter publicity campaign with a detailed design document. They would use the Kickstarter phase to refine development details and run fundraising pushes. Finally, they would launch PantheonROTF at the very end of the Kickstarter.

Final thought: You only get one shot at the brass ring when it comes to selling something. Plan ahead, use it wisely, and "Wow 'em."

I really wish they waited until after the kickstarter was finished to launch the post funding site. They gave up on the kickstarter half way through and instead of adding new pledge tiers and some juicy new updates to help it finish strong they redirected their focus away from kickstarter into a private site.

I'm so very disappointed in this team. I'm in on this kickstarter at $855 and would consider upgrading if they had something I could upgrade to that also allowed me to keep my design an item bonus without going up to $3000. I will not however donate any money directly to them on their private site via Paypal.

Over half funded with a few days to go. Not bad, and im sure if the funded mark was 500k, it probably would have hit. These things always ramp up as they get closer. Few days left so who knows.

I will help fund this game, here or main website...it matters not. There, I believe, enough people out there looking for this type of game to support it. Hell, if I had enough money, I would be a prime investor if not the investor. I would love to be part of this and to boss Brad around =P

So tired of all the other games and gamers out there who play them. Have only truly enjoyed two of them, EQ and Vanguard. This will be my third. I think once this game goes live, it will start with only the base who really wants this to be made. And people who try it, who have never experienced this type of game and the challenges / rewards of it, will want to stay.

Personal opinion is what another guy has said, it doesn't matter if the KS is funded or not. There is proof that this game will have support, maybe not millions, but enough for it to be worthwhile. And the people who want this game to happen will stick around.

Honestly i can understand why some people are scared to pledge. The thing i can't understand is why people are ranting about what they should be receiving for it or what entitlement or guarantee they should receive for doing so ...

I see this as risk vs benefits investment ... i have been looking for the kind of game those guys are trying to create for the past 5 years.... If i count what i pledge and the website fee i dont even reach 1/10 of what i spent in the past 5 years on games that where shallow and really not my gaming style. so why would i be afraid to lose that money on a vaporware ? At least i will be able to say i tried to make a difference for something i believed in.

I believe that this team can pull it off. They are creating something for US gamer that are interested in old school game play. So to me, The question should be ... Are you willing to risk it for AAA dev team to produce a game you feel like YOU want to play. or should you stand there and say at least i didn't lose a penny but i wish they would have pull it off.

Anyway i'm babbling right now lol, my point is, If you want to invest in something you believe in, it shouldn't be done with an entitlement purpose.

At which point in time you wish to pledge, and how much is always going to be up to you. Our job is to provide what we can to show you that the game IS being made.

Right now, we're a LOT earlier in development than some of the other Kickstarters when they launched their campaigns, and with a LOT less startup money (we're all working pro-bono from our homes right now). What we can do, and are going to do, is to use the initial funding levels we get now to make more of the game showable, and hopefully win over some more interest from others who are uncomfortable pledging at this early stage.

I can say "this game will happen no matter what" all day. But I can't show you that until we reach certain funding levels. So when we do reach those levels and have enough to show you, you'll be seeing it the moment it's at that point.

@ItPalg: you pay this company 2 years for access and pledge $250 up front. $15 a month for 2 years is 360. Your total investment is 610. Then one day you log into the forums and they say, due to lack of funds we are not going to be able to continue this project. Thanks for your donations, have a great day.

610 is what I am will to spend to support the project. Much like Popsicle this is their opportunity to give me some information before I make that kind of investment for something that could turn into vapor ware.

I backed Star Citizen, Star Citizen said "we are 20% done with the game" we don't want investors, we want you, here is the support from our website, here are more options to support an already guaranteed game that we are making. The game will be made and these videos show you where we are in development.. Star Citizen had a game, in game graphics, and they made their KS. Now people know that the game was funded, and SC just made another access for people to provide money to the system. I just want to be assured there is going to be a game for my money.

Popsicledeath - I could not, with decades of time dedicated to trying, disagree with you more vehemently than I currently do.

I need a mechanism to funnel my money to these guys so they can make my hobby current. I welcome the subscription option. Do you live in some world where things are magically generated for free? Are you happy with the drivel that big publishers are pushing off on us today as "challenging MMOs"? If the answer is yes to either, then be happy you found out now - you are welcome to the "free" stuff. The rest of us will happily help these guys out.

I for one could care less if they are better at making a game than they are at "divining" what challenges might impact them on their first attempt at Kickstarter. I want my game developers to MAKE GAMES. But maybe in your little slice of life, CEOs can just pop into marketing, finance, IT or any other department and never, ever make a mistake. ami rite?

$400k+ - amazing success! Nearly half a million - what was the last kickstarter YOU ran that brought in half a million?

So easy to armchair develop from the anonymous confines of the internet, eh?

Brad and team. You are seasoned veterans, with a long list of AAA accomplishments and MMO leading successes, despite the very real turbulence and hardships that come with passionately working in an incredibly tough business. Keep the faith, and don't let the supposed "know it alls" distract you from the task at hand!

I feel that if they'd put as much energy into explaining and building the post-kickstarter systems, they'd maybe have had a shot at the actual KS. Instead, they seem to be taking a stance that the KS wasn't even that great an opportunity anyhow, that it was taxed too high, too rigid so they couldn't get tiers how they wanted, not the community the private site will be. If seems like they're saying KS just wasn't a good enough system....

You sure KS wasn't good enough, because it has worked for other projects with wild success? And now we should give money, in a nickle and dime fashion, with even less accountability than KS? No thank you.

I've gone from a $800+ vocal supporter to very against the direction of this project, that at this point has way too high a risk to simply rip off desperate gamers in an attempt to avoid some out of work devs have to get 'real' jobs. You blew it, sirs, and letting people continue their support in the face of your failures isn't at all noble or giving us what we want.

If you had any pride or self-respect left after this, you wouldn't charge a sub to have color plates on forum names and sit in on a week roundtable with devs. That's no accountability for taking the public's money. You'd go back to square one, assess the situation, try to actually learn from mistakes, and maybe try another KS that is clear in the intent to open a studio and fund a demo, not one that makes promises that are out of reach and promises everything to everyone and then ends up with a nickel and diming system just like all the mmos you guys are claiming to not be like.

@Takyan That has been some of my issues since day one. But if you go back and watch the videos with Brad you will notice that it is very much like the Pathfinder demo than a full game. $800k could never have developed this game by itself. It was always going to take investors. It has been my belief (though unverified) that Brad and company have a couple of people who are interested in the project but the investors wanted proof there was a community ready for this project.

I also firmly believe if you pledge you know you are risking your money and know that you will not get it back if the company fails. Just like any kickstarter you have to ask yourself how much confidence do you feel in the team that they will deliver the product you want. If you do not have that confidence best to wait it out and purchase the game when it releases.

However at the champion level you have the opportunity to really engage and work with the team to potentially develop an experience that you want.

All sounds great to me, I will 'pledge' again on your website in a week or so. I have cash flow issues at the moment anyway, should be better in a week. But I really want/NEED this game. It sounds like my kind of game so I'll pledge what I can and have already told friends. I hope word keeps spreading. You seem to be doing the right things.

In the method you are describing I am giving you money with no idea if your going to be able to even fund the game? I am confused as to what amount of money will be needed for this game to be made.

Do you have additional funding coming from somewhere else?
How much money do you need to raise in order for the game to be released?
How long will you collect money to determine if you are financially capable of making the game?
If you cannot reach the funding goal with either outside funding or from social funding when do I get my money back?